4.2.1 Invoking MySQL Programs

To invoke a MySQL program from the command line (that is, from
your shell or command prompt), enter the program name followed by
any options or other arguments needed to instruct the program what
you want it to do. The following commands show some sample program
invocations. shell> represents the prompt
for your command interpreter; it is not part of what you type. The
particular prompt you see depends on your command interpreter.
Typical prompts are $ for
sh, ksh, or
bash, % for
csh or tcsh, and
C:\> for the Windows
command.com or cmd.exe
command interpreters.

Arguments that begin with a single or double dash
(-, --) specify program
options. Options typically indicate the type of connection a
program should make to the server or affect its operational mode.
Option syntax is described in Section 4.2.3, “Specifying Program Options”.

Nonoption arguments (arguments with no leading dash) provide
additional information to the program. For example, the
mysql program interprets the first nonoption
argument as a database name, so the command mysql
--user=root test indicates that you want to use the
test database.

Later sections that describe individual programs indicate which
options a program supports and describe the meaning of any
additional nonoption arguments.

Some options are common to a number of programs. The most
frequently used of these are the
--host (or -h),
--user (or -u),
and --password (or
-p) options that specify connection parameters.
They indicate the host where the MySQL server is running, and the
user name and password of your MySQL account. All MySQL client
programs understand these options; they enable you to specify
which server to connect to and the account to use on that server.
Other connection options are
--port (or -P) to
specify a TCP/IP port number and
--socket (or -S)
to specify a Unix socket file on Unix (or named pipe name on
Windows). For more information on options that specify connection
options, see Section 4.2.2, “Connecting to the MySQL Server”.

You may find it necessary to invoke MySQL programs using the path
name to the bin directory in which they are
installed. This is likely to be the case if you get a
“program not found” error whenever you attempt to run
a MySQL program from any directory other than the
bin directory. To make it more convenient to
use MySQL, you can add the path name of the
bin directory to your PATH
environment variable setting. That enables you to run a program by
typing only its name, not its entire path name. For example, if
mysql is installed in
/usr/local/mysql/bin, you can run the program
by invoking it as mysql, and it is not
necessary to invoke it as
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql.

Consult the documentation for your command interpreter for
instructions on setting your PATH variable. The
syntax for setting environment variables is interpreter-specific.
(Some information is given in
Section 4.2.10, “Setting Environment Variables”.) After modifying
your PATH setting, open a new console window on
Windows or log in again on Unix so that the setting goes into
effect.